Background
Epidemiology training plays a critical role in shaping how future practitioners conceptualise health, risk, and causation. Internationally, social epidemiology is established as a core sub-discipline within epidemiology education and formally taught within leading public health programmes, including at Harvard and Columbia University. In Aotearoa New Zealand, where inequities are shaped by colonisation and structural racism, limited integration of these perspectives may affect the development of an equity-responsive epidemiology workforce. This study examines how social epidemiology is represented within teaching materials used in medical and public health programmes across NZ universities.

Methods
A qualitative content analysis was conducted on epidemiology textbooks and publicly available course reading materials from medical and public health programmes across New Zealand universities. Materials were systematically reviewed to assess the presence, depth, and integration of social epidemiological concepts, including structural determinants, health inequities, and Indigenous frameworks such as Kaupapa Māori. Data were coded and analysed thematically to examine how these concepts were positioned relative to the dominant biomedical paradigm.

Results
Social determinants were present but were typically positioned as background context rather than as core analytical frameworks, and were predominantly framed as contextual rather than analytical. Teaching materials emphasised study design, statistical methods, and individual-level risk factors, with limited integration of structural and Indigenous approaches. Social epidemiology was not consistently embedded.

Conclusion
Findings highlight a gap in how contemporary epidemiological approaches are reflected in training. Strengthening the integration of social epidemiology, structural determinants, and Indigenous epistemologies within core curricula represents an important opportunity for advancing skills development in epidemiology. Such reorientation is critical for preparing a future epidemiology workforce capable of responding to complex, structurally driven health inequities across Aotearoa and the Pacific, and for aligning training with contemporary expectations of equity-focused public health practice.